


Temple Run

by 4eeldrive



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 00:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3189848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4eeldrive/pseuds/4eeldrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia unearths a sleeping solar goddess in an alien ruin, and does what any good archeologist would do from there - awkwardly ask her on a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temple Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kapbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kapbird/gifts).



This ruin was one of the strangest Aradia had ever found. The building material was something she’d never seen before, a weird cement mixture that hadn’t appeared in any prior ruins she’d explored. The floors were also littered with shattered glass, and huge gaps in the walls pointed to large and numerous window fixtures. Who used that much glass to build a structure? Ancient aliens, probably. Alternian weather patterns were too harsh for that to have ever been a smart building choice. Any troll would have known that.

As Aradia pushed deeper into the confusing ruin, strange markings and signage began to appear on the walls. Some of them were recognizable as solar symbols – a sun is a sun is a sun, across most species. Intermingled with the solar symbols were a lot of opposing imagery too – marks that Aradia interpreted as the absence of light, eclipses, falling. It was strange, as the building was not likely constructed by trolls, but those images were almost recognizable as horrorterror cult imagery. The ruin was older than any Aradia had yet found on Alternia, but the horrorterrors were rumored to be older than Alternia itself, so her ancient alien hypothesis was not out of the question. 

Hastily, she scribbled some notes down, and made some rubbings of the markings. She was fairly certain she was close to the center of the building, and she wanted to press on. Past experience had demonstrated that most people would store valuable mystical nonsense in the heart of structures. Aradia would personally stow such artifacts more to the left, if she had any, just to throw future budding archeologists off. It would make it more fun for them, she was sure.

She stood before what was likely the final door to the heart of the ruin. When she tried it, it refused to open. If ram mom had come along with her, she could have just head-butted it down for her. But she’d decided to be lazy and sleep in, so Aradia had to settle for kicking the door in herself. 

Her hunch had been correct – in the center of the room was a raised pedestal, with an odd looking rock perched atop it. Typical. As she approached, she saw that the rock seemed to be smoking, which only delayed her reaching out and touching it by a few seconds. It was warm, but not hot, and as her palm closed around it, the stone started to beat like a heart. Aradia immediately let go. Rock hearts were not something to be messed with. The smoke increased, filling the whole room as Aradia backed away. She covered her mouth and nose as she tried to find the door out, but the smoke quickly withdrew, and resolved itself into a more solid shape. A weird looking alien shape.

“Neat.” Aradia managed, as she looked at the being who’d emerged from the smoke. The alien smirked a bit. She was pretty, if almost wholly un-troll-like. Delicate features, dark skin and a shock of white hair, and nice curves all over. She didn’t have horns, which was a bit of a shame, though she was still cute, and the halo of light circling around her head kind of had a similar effect. 

“You done staring?” Her voice even sounded strange, less buzzing than the average troll would have in their resonance. Aradia wondered briefly how her vocal chords worked.

“Yup.”

“Oh good. So, what’s the deal here? You here to resurrect a dead cult, get some magic wishes, steal a god’s power, what? I should let you know I’m only a demigoddess, so it’s barely even worth it.” The goddess yawned. 

“Oh, only a demigoddess. Well then I’m only an archeologist, so I don’t really want any of that. I was just exploring, this building is so strange and interesting!”

“I think it’s kind of boring, actually.”

“Well of course, you’ve probably been here forever. I bet that’d make almost anything boring.”

The demigoddess nodded, throwing a bored glance around the room.

“I’m Rose by the way.”

“That’s it? What a short name for a goddess. No titles like world eater or sun singer or anything with a flourish like that?”

“Nope.”

“Interesting. I’m Aradia.”

“What kind of name is that for an archeologist, not even a title like desecrator of tombs, or she-who-crushes-sacred-trinkets-beneath-clumsy-unwieldy-feet.”

Aradia laughed. What a funny goddess. She was glad she didn’t seem to be the smiting type. “That’s fair enough. You’re a solar goddess, I’m guessing, yeah?”

Rose granted her a real smile now, not a smirk. “I am. You would not believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen the sun, any sun. Eons. Eons upon eons. You got in here, so I’m assuming you have a way out?”

“Oh yeah! I marked the way back with chalk and everything!” Aradia was particularly pleased that at last someone else would be able to marvel at how good her archeological and exploring skills were. No way was this goddess getting lost on the way out. “I can lead you out too, just as an added measure, so you don’t have to spend any more time than you have to away from the sun.”

“Lead the way then.” 

“Sure! I have to warn you though, that this planet’s sun could probably best be described as abominable. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, which, by the way, you should totally tell me all about how you got here and who built this building, and what this building even is while we head out of here.”

Rose shrugged. “I don’t know who built it, it’s just a skyscraper.” That was a less exciting or in-depth answer than the one Aradia had been hoping for. “Anyways, like I said, the sun is sort of my element, I doubt I need to worry about yours.”

Aradia peppered Rose with questions as the climbed out of the ruins and towards the sun. Rose tried to answer, but her answers were always too short for Aradia’s liking. She couldn’t even tell her the building process for the cement. Some demigoddess. She was still fairly good company, and Aradia succeeded in getting her to laugh a few times. 

As they neared the hole Aradia had climbed down through, Aradia started to hang back. Rose could do what she liked, being a demigoddess and all, but Aradia would rather not face the wrath of Alternia’s sun.

“Here we are, your sun is right out there.”

“Thank you, I do appreciate it.” Rose flashed her a smile before heading outside. Almost immediately she came back in. She was squinting, and blinking rapidly, trying to clear the sun’s burnout from her eyes.

“You were one hundred percent right. What is the deal with your sun?”

“It’s always been like that, I think.” Rose looked awfully put out. Aradia thought quickly for some way to cheer her up. “When the sun goes down, though, I’d be happy to show you around in the dark.” Rose sighed at that.

“I’m not the hugest fan of the dark.”

Aradia knew just the thing for the situation. “Well, I know this cave with really cool bioluminescent mushrooms in it that are maybe almost like sunlight might look on a different planet? I could take you there, it would be fun!”

Rose’s smirk was back. “That sounds almost like a date. How brazen of you, to just wake a goddess up from dreaming and approach her like that.” 

“Thought you said you’re a demigoddess.” Aradia laughed. “I guess it does sound like a date, though. If you want, we can pretend that you, the mighty and powerful goddess, initiated it.”

“That sounds doable.” Rose leaned forward and gave Aradia a light kiss on the cheek. “I was getting tired of dreaming anyway.”


End file.
